ReasonstoChooseorNottoChooseaLabel

Choosing a label for your sexual orientation can be agonizing
and unproductive, but it can be much less so if you're clear
in your mind about why you're choosing one at all. Hopefully,
your reason has something to do with wanting to describe your
identity to yourself or others. As long as you're careful to
make your labels serve your purposes, there's no
reason to be afraid of labeling yourself.

The trick is to choose your words carefully—to
be absolutely certain that you only allow your label to say what
you want it to say. Also remember that many people change sexual
orientation labels many times throughout their life, and you
should feel free to do the same. A label should describe
your identity, not dictate it. Regardless of what label
you give yourself, if any, you should always feel free to explore
and experiment with any options whenever they happen to seem
interesting—whether or not they happen to coincide with
whatever label you're currently using.

There are no rules about what labels you're
"allowed" to use, or how you have to behave in order to
use them. For example, many people who consider themselves
"homosexuals" have long-term relationships with members
of the opposite sex without ever redefining themselves as
"bisexuals" or "heterosexuals," simply
because they feel that describing themselves as "homosexuals
in a relationship with the opposite sex" expresses something
important about their identities that the words
"bisexual" or "heterosexual" would not
adequately describe. The key here is to recognize that you
don't need anyone else's approval to have the right to
call yourself by whatever label you want. Just choose your label
to communicate whatever you want to communicate about
yourself.

Here are some good possible reasons that some people decide to
call themselves queer, lesbian, bisexual or gay:

To protest against our homophobic society's attempts to
dictate who we can or cannot love.

To let others know you've stood up for your right to love
and make love to anyone you care to.

You admire the queer, lesbian, bisexual and/or gay community
and want to become or remain a part of it.

You don't know how to repress your same-gender sexual
feelings and you feel it's better to acknowledge and come to
terms with them than to go on denying their existence.

To experience what it's like to be given a stigmatized
label, and gain the knowledge, emotional strength and
self-reliance that comes with that experience.

You don't feel like bothering to argue with others who
label you as queer, lesbian, bisexual or gay.

To be able to make snappy comebacks like "Yes, I
am queer, and being queer is a good thing to be!"
or "That's Mr. Faggot to
you!"—because whether or not you actually consider
yourself queer, responding to homophobic slurs by saying
"No, really, I'm not queer" wouldn't
sound very prideful and would never convince anyone anyway.

It scares you to say the words "I'm queer" to
yourself, and you don't like being afraid of things, and you
know that the only way to overcome any fear is to practice doing
the thing you're most afraid of.

Not everybody has the same reasons for calling themselves
queer, but any of the reasons listed above could be good reasons.
Personally (this is Gayle Madwin speaking), I started calling
myself gay, bisexual, and queer at age 15, in order to fight for
the freedom of all people to love and make love to whoever they
choose to—and now, eight years later I continue to call
myself queer for that reason and also because the queer community
is the group I care most about and the place that I feel I
belong. For me, choosing to start calling myself queer has been
the best thing I ever did. It gave me a purpose in life—a
cause to fight for. And the experience of successfully rebelling
against heterosexuality taught me a lot about how to rebel
against other things I don't like. If I had never chosen to
start calling myself queer, I would have missed out on so many
important lessons in life that I would be a much lesser person
than I now am.

However, it's also worthwhile to consider the reasons many
people object to labeling themselves. This quote is a good place
to start:

In fact, it frequently happens that [a] man, while recognizing
his homosexual inclination, while avowing each and every
particular [attraction and sex act] which he has committed,
refuses with all his strength to consider himself a
'homosexual.' His case is always 'different,'
peculiar; there enters into it something of a game, of chance, of
bad luck.... The critic asks only one thing ... that the guilty
one recognize himself as guilty, that the homosexual declare
frankly ... 'I am a homosexual.'

We ask here who is in bad faith. The homosexual or the
champion of sincerity? The homosexual recognizes his
[attraction], but he struggles with all his strength against the
crushing view that his [attraction] constitutes for him a
destiny. He has an obscure but strong feeling that a homosexual
is not a homosexual as this table is a table or as this
red-haired man is red-haired.... Does he not recognize in himself
the peculiar, irreducible character of human reality? ... He
would be right actually ... if he declared to himself, 'To
the extent that a pattern of conduct is defined as the conduct of
a homosexual and to the extent that I have adopted this conduct,
I am a homosexual. But to the extent that human reality cannot be
finally defined by patterns of conduct, I am not one.'

... But what about the champion of sincerity, the critic of
homosexuality? The critic demands of the guilty one that he
constitute himself as a thing ... Who cannot see how offensive to
the other and how reassuring for me is a statement such as
'He's just a homosexual,' which removes a disturbing
freedom from a trait and which aims at henceforth constituting
all the acts of the Other as consequences following strictly from
his essence. That is actually what the critic is demanding of his
victim—that he constitute himself as a thing.

—David M. Munsey, "The Love That Need Not Name its
Speaker," Vol. 2 No. 1, The National Journal of Sexual
Orientation Law, 1996

That quote sums up a lot of people's anti-label sentiments
pretty thoroughly. However, the goals of this website are not at
all at odds with that man's goals. The goals of this website
include all of the following:

To not demand that anyone constitute themself as a
"thing." This website does not demand anything
at all. Whether you choose to label yourself, what label you
choose to use, who you choose to have sex with, who you choose to
have relationships with, and how you choose to conduct your life
in any and all ways is entirely up to you.

To point out that there's nothing inherently
wrong with being constituted as a "thing"—it all
depends on what the "thing" in question is. To be
constituted as a person, a genius, an artist, or an animal lover
is to be constituted as a "thing." Whether or not being
constituted as a "thing" is demeaning depends entirely
on whether the "thing" in question is defined in a way
that you want to define yourself.

To encourage people to consider redefining traditional labels
in nontraditional ways, such as if you feel that "a
homosexual is not a homosexual as this table is a table or as
this red-haired man is red-haired." By claiming the label
"homosexual" but rejecting the traditional definition
of homosexuality as inborn and/or unchanging ("as this table
is a table or as this red-haired man is red-haired"), you
can deconstruct the label in ways that others may find
liberating.

To encourage anyone who feels or has felt attracted to a
person of the same sex not to be afraid to acknowledge that,
"To the extent that a pattern of conduct is defined as the
conduct of a homosexual and to the extent that I have adopted
this conduct, I am a homosexual."

To also encourage anyone who feels or has felt attracted to a
person of the same sex not to be afraid to acknowledge that,
"But to the extent that human reality cannot be finally
defined by patterns of conduct, I am not one."

RelatedLinks:

Jennifer's Bisexuality Index
Page
Jennifer is a bi woman who has conducted many bisexuality
awareness workshops. Her site contains several sections on how to
choose your labels. Although it's nominally a bi site,
virtually everything on it is equally applicable to any sexual
identity.